Exclusive Features

Optic Arts wants to eliminate the complexity involved in installing flexible LED products and fixtures. By Jim Harris, Senior Editor at Knighthouse Media

Optic Arts knows that flexible LED lighting, by nature, can be challenging for contractors to work with. It can require extra effort to install, including the need to sometimes be cut in the field to fit an application.

The Monterey Park, Calif.-based manufacturer’s customizable LED products can help contractors overcome this challenge. “We want to build products that are easy to design with and easy to install,” CEO Jason Mullen says. “Removing complexity and making a custom product that is easy to use is what we live for.”

As the only American manufacturer of under-bridge access platforms, Anderson Hydra Platforms provides the safest and most efficient under-bridge access available. By Bianca Herron, Senior Editor at Knighthouse Media

After Pat Dandridge acquired Anderson Hydra Platforms (AHP) in 2014, his goal was to deliver the safest, most reliable and cost-effective piece of equipment for under-bridge access for inspection, construction and repair anywhere in the world. Dandridge also aimed to improve the customer experience with the York, S.C.-based company.

“I know that few projects are more complicated than under-bridge repair, upfit, restoration or maintenance,” CEO Dandridge explains. “The time and money spent on traditional scaffolding alone can make or break the profitability of the project. Even the slightest miscalculation could result in an enormous loss of profit or worse, human life.”

MgO Systems was born of a need for safer and greener building materials. By Jim Harris, Senior Editor at Knighthouse Media

In 2010, MgO Systems founder and CEO Todd McKay discovered the materials used to build his house were highly flammable in the worst way possible when his home burned down shortly before Christmas.

“Fortunately, it happened during the day; otherwise his family may have perished because they had less than 10 minutes to get out of the house,” MgO Systems CFO Jim Pendergast says. “There was nothing the fire department could do because it started in the garage, where there were a lot of flammable items; once the fire caught there, it raged.”

In its most recent report, the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration estimates there were 96,626 crashes in work zones in 2015. On average, a work zone crash occurred once every 5.4 minutes. Seventy work zone crashes occurred every day that resulted in at least one injury and 12 work zone crashes happened every week that resulted in at least one fatality.

DKI is a U.S. manufacturer specializing in high-performance drilling tools serving the oil and gas, civil and construction, geotechnical-geothermal, mining, tunneling, and water well in more than 80 countries.

The Texas-based company, founded in 2004, has decades of experience among its leadership. According to, Partner and Vice President of Business Development Shane Deerman, DKI has aggressively grown by recruiting “seasoned” industry veterans since its launch. Deerman along with several colleagues, each bring more than 20 years of industry experience and expertise.

“Our president, Larry Broseh, has over 35 years of industry experience, and our operations manager and engineering team has decades of industry experience as well,” he says. “So even though we’re a young company, we’ve pulled together a team that already knew the playbook of the industry.”

SiteAware offers general contractors and owners a better way to optimize on-site operations and track progress. By Jim Harris, Senior Editor at Knighthouse Media

Visualizing progress on a job site can be difficult for contractors, particularly during the early stages of a project. SiteAware is making it easier for general contractors, real estate developers and others to objectively keep track of their projects, meeting schedule and budget. The system can be used to monitor large and complex construction projects in multiple sectors including commercial, institutional, industrial and major residential developments.

The company offers its clients an end-to-end solution to their project monitoring and site management needs that includes cloud-based software as well as autonomous off-the-shelf drones, tablets, support, maintenance and training. “We believe our true value is in the data produced by regularly scanning the construction site,” Vice President of Marketing and Business Development Gil Mildworth says.

Artistic Finishes might have the soul of a craftsman, but it also embraces modern technology and innovative ideas to stay on top of its game.

The St. Paul, Minn.-based company creates custom floor moldings and accessories for the flooring professional. Its product line includes a variety of moldings, vents, treads and risers. While some products are stained by machines, the majority are still hand-stained by artisans.

“You have to have an artisan eye for color,” says Bill Treiber, technical sales and education manager. “We have many individuals staining one stick at a time. That’s virtually unheard of but that’s how we do business.”

Federal Brace develops brackets and other products based on the needs of its customers. By Jim Harris, Senior Editor at Knighthouse Media

Solving customer problems is deeply ingrained in Federal Brace’s DNA. “We were born out of providing solutions to customers who were unable to find solutions through normal means,” President Scott Toal says.

The company dates its origins back to the early 2000s when its parent company Short Run Pro, a custom metal fabricator, began offering support brackets for stone and granite countertops. “People were having trouble finding supports that would hold heavy countertop overhangs,” Toal says. “At the time, the conventional means of getting a suitable bracket made meant going to a manufacturer or fabricator, or going to a big box store and buying a bracket that would not have the aesthetic appearance or carrying capacity you’d want in a kitchen or bathroom.

“We started manufacturing brackets to custom specifications realizing over time there was a market for these solutions because no one else had a standardized product line,” he adds. “Consumers needed a bracket of some kind, but were limited in most instances to using brackets that weren’t aesthetically pleasing in a kitchen or didn’t have sufficient weight-bearing characteristics.”

Every builder knows that what's shown on a blueprint or in a 3-D rendering never exactly matches up with the end result. Something as small as a misaligned bolt could alter the placement of a support beam in a way that impacts how the structure fits together and its overall strength. Understanding those imperfections and having an accurate picture of the real-world building requires a way to map an as-built model of the structure.

When a developer evaluates land for a project, their first impulse might to be to take a drive to look at the site. But Nearmap US Inc.’s technology allows users to skip that step, as well as make other important decisions during every stage of a construction project, Vice President of Marketing Tony Agresta says.